I think at some point they decided that the book was not about Don Blake, who becomes Thor (the way Spider-Man is about Peter Parker) and made it about Thor, who has a civilian identity.

Looks like you were biting more than that...

Comments from the peanut gallery ( Or just me!)

Loki ups the anti by finding out Thors secret. Is it me or does Loki appear to have better abilities than Thor? Thor actually admits to as much but is confidant that his Hammer will give him the win.



Well, Loki eliminates the Hammer by encasing it in a magic barrier, so I guess he agreed that the Hammer was a problem. About Loki's powers, I am reading my Thor run because I don't know what everyone's abilities and power levels are. I think I know what everyone can do but my memory has gaps. 
In this issue alone Loki has the power of Flight, he can transform himself into other forms, and he can make inanimate objects into live animals. This appears to be Molecule man or Firestorm level powers. the Question is , are these powers here to stay or are they just something that was used during this books "Superman" phase ?

Heimdals' failure to see a snake slithering along the rainbow bridge appears to be a weak plot device to free Loki from Asgard. My memory tells me that he can see a grain of sand fall In the desert. 

Fun Moments-

Loki causing the militaries weapons to sprout wings.




The aforemented scene with the dogs attacking a persons bike. 




Men writing comics in the 60's moment-

Jane faints , preventing her seeing Thors transformation to Blake. Is it me, or is fainting  a thing that happens only in comics, and only to women?

Thug Thatcher gave Thor waaaay too much trouble in this story. They might have gotten away with it if they had Loki, behind the scenes, under house arrest and bored because his TV privileges have been taken away and he can’t watch Bonanza or Perry Mason, and Loki’s watching from his bunk bed with the covers over his head, and he’s giving Thug ideas and making him stronger and teleporting him away so he can escape.

Still, as is, it’s got its moments. That cover is truly classic. The Kirby/Ayers art is great, as usual.

And that bit where Jane Foster is fantasizing about being married to Thor is COMEDY GOLD!

Not to mention that this story gets a lot of extra points because it’s right next to #90 and it looks SO GOOD in comparison!

icctrombone tricked me! And I'm still kind of mad about it! We were just kind of willy-nilly writing these reviews, and icctrombone suggested things might go smoother if we alternated the reviews. He said, "You do 88, 90, 92 and so on, and I'll do 89, 91, 93 and etc." And I said "sure" and didn't notice until later how sneakily he manipulated the schedule so that I got stuck with #90.

I'll feel a lot better about life and the world and things like that when #90 is in the rear-view mirror. So I decided to just get it out of the way so I can start contemplating the idea that I may be happy again someday. I'll never be able to start to learn to trust people again with this hanging over my head.

And if I ever say "sure" the next time icctrombone suggests that we should do a joint review thread, it will be my own fault.



You know what gets me about that cover? It's probably one of Kirby's worst covers. Like he couldn't put forward his best effort because the negative energy was making him depressed and he churned this one out so he could move on as quickly as possible.

Journey into Mystery #90
March 1963
"Trapped by the Carbon-Copy Man!"

There's this planet called Xarta and the inhabitants are orange-skinned and very war-like. And very badly drawn. They have names like Ugarth and Zano. They leave Xarta in their spaceships, headed for Earth. They brag that they are unbeatable because they have THE GREAT POWER. (Which is their ability to change their appearance, or even turn invisible. They are second-rate Skrulls. Ugh, it's so bad.)

Meanwhile Don Blake is torn up about the whole Jane Foster thing. And how he loves her but can't say anything. Because of Odin and all his rules. Oh man! This crap goes on for two pages. (Some of the drawings of Jane are pretty good. Al Hartley drew Patsy Walker for a long time, and I've read a few of those, and they are pretty funny! It looks like he was tossed into super-hero comics and was so uncomfortable that he wasn't given much of a chance to figure out what he was doing.)

Meanwhile, out on the street, everybody is all upset about the new laws. Thor investigates and, to make a long story short, he discovers that many government figures have been replaced by shape-shifting Xartans with names like Ugarth and Zano. The Xartans are trying to sow discord among the Eathlings with dumb laws like the one where you have to walk to work from now on. No using your car! Thor finds the main Xartan warship and attackes the Xartans and they try their advanced weapons on him and they freeze him with ice-powers and one of them turns into a giant gladiator and then the main war chief turns invisible and so on and so on. It's painful.

Thor finally hurls the chief's flagship into space and the fleet follows. There are a few Xartans left on Earth and Thor (who must have read Fantastic Four #2) persuades them to turn into trees. (Instead of cows.) And because the Xartans take on all the attributes of whatever they've turned into, they are now actually trees with no free will to change back and escape.

So that's the time Thor was trapped by the Carbon-Copy Man.

Commentary: So how did this happen? 

I'm guessing that Stan felt that Kirby had gotten Thor started and he wanted him to move on to another project. And he was trying to find somebody to take over Thor while Kirby wasn't available. Maybe Al Hartley was always a temporary choice while Stan was waiting for Joe Sinnott's schedule to open up.

Or maybe Lee thought Hartley would be able to handle it. Lee and Hartley had been working together on Patsy Walker for a while at this point. In the last few months, I've read a handful of the Patsy Walker stories by Lee and Hartley, and I find them very amusing. I'd like to read more. I wish more stories were available at Comixology. In any case, Lee asked Harley to give Thor a shot.

Whatever permanent plans might have been in the works would have been quashed pretty quickly because Sinnott is the artist on the very next issue.

I think it's a lot more likely that Hartley was always a fill-in artist because there was nobody else available that month. If Hartley had been intended as a possible permanent artist, he would have done a better job. It looks like a rush job. They story is just so bad, with so many elements lifted from Fantastic Four #2. Like everybody involved in the writing was just slapping down words on the page to get this one to the printer.

(You might even notice that Thor has the costume from the origin story, with the slit down the side of his tunic, with his ribs exposed. As if nobody could be bothered to make sure that Hartley had the most recent character sheet for reference.)

My online research turned up an interview with Hartley where he said he couldn't remember any of the details about why he ended up as the artist on JIM #90. He also states that he knows he's a lot more suited to Patsy Walker and series like that. I'll provide a link for it later tonight if I can find it again.

Here's an article I found for anyone who wants to know more about Al Hartley.

marvelsilverage.blogspot.com/2017/12/thor-wilderness-years.html

According to the credits, Stan Lee was just the plotter. If he'd done more, I'm sure he would have let everyone know about it.